1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an operator interactive system for reading, processing and identifying patterns, such as fingerprints.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Law enforcement agencies have often in the past found it necessary to forgo the process of identifying latent fingerprints "lifted" from surfaces at the scene-of-a-crime due to the large amount of time and expense involved. Latent fingerprints are usually "lifted" from such inhospitable surfaces as bottles, window sills, door knobs, the inside of gloves, etc., and are often only fragmentary and, consequently, even more difficult to identify than good quality prints. Therefore, such latent fingerprints were often only useful when a suspect was apprehended due to other evidence and comparison of the latent prints were made with the fingerprints of that suspect. When it was decided that an identification process was to be performed on a latent print, a manual process was employed which often took many months to arrive at a probable identification.
In some prior art systems, it was necessary to visually analyze and tabulate data and estimate the proper orientation with respect to a predetermined reference orientation for all fingerprints. Then it was necessary to perform either a totally manual search or machine search and retrieval, followed by visual comparisons of the visually extracted and tabulated data with the stored fingerprint data to obtain an identification.
To the extent that machine systems are available, they are only useful for reading good quality fingerprints. In the past, if a latent fingerprint of poor quality or only a partial fingerprint was presented to a machine system, information would be extracted and processed. However, no indication was given that the system was extracting erroneous information. Only upon visual comparison with the retrieved fingerprint patterns could one determine that the system was retrieving the wrong fingerprints.